Hi
total novice in this area
so what format should I rip my Cd collection in ,
Is WMA lossless as good as FLAC , whats the pro's and con's
had a look round this great info site , but still a bit lossless
cheers all
just found the lossless wiki comparisons page
so getting a bit less lossless now
The answer depends on which player you will use most of the time. Windows Media Player or Media Center has perfect support for WMA, and getting FLAC to work is problematic. Almost every other player handles either equally well. I don't use apple's software, so I can't comment on it.
Both are lossless, so the music will sound identical. WMA lossless files are smaller than the same file compressed using FLAC, but hard drive space is so cheap. I prefer FLAC because it has a built-in data verification, which WMA doesn't. WMA lossless doesn't play on Linux.
@jamesing: As good in what way?
Cheers, Slipstreem.
WMA Lossless produces slightly smaller files (on average) than FLAC. But we're not talking much, maybe 1-2%. However, WMA is many times slower to decode than FLAC. If you do a lot of encoding (e.g. putting your lossless collection on your iPod) the slow decoding speed will get on your nerves.
As iPods have been mentioned, we have to point out that neither WMAL nor FLAC are the obvious choices for recent iPods, which can't have Rockbox installed.
To OP, I guess the conclusion is that, since all lossless encoders sound the same (by definition), and since there isn't that much difference in file size, the main factor is what you're going to play them on. FOSS may be a consideration for some people. And, finally, since by definition you can transcode losslessly from one lossless codec to another, not too much bad happens if you make a suboptimal choice, since you won't have to re-rip all your CDs.
...unless you choose a codec that takes longer to decode than it does to rip.
...unless you choose a codec that takes longer to decode than it does to rip.
Though all of us own the hardware to do a bulk unattended transcode, few of us own the hardware to do a bulk unattended rip.
Just pointing out that there are some very bad choices that can be made with lossless codecs.
@MichaelW's question further down:
Monkey's Audio and OptimFROG using aggressive settings, for example.
http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison...Rate&Desc=0 (http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison/lossless/index.asp?Sort=DecodeRate&Desc=0)
the format really depends on the media player of choice. if you want to use WMP, then WMA is a very good way to go, WMP can do everything with WMA by default (rip/burn/convert/tag etc). support for FLAC and APE is limited in WMP, for starters, you have to install a 3rd party DS filter for WMP to even play those, then you need a Tag plugin if you want to edit tags on files or add them to the library. i exclusively use WMA Lossless since about a year ago, i had transcoded every lossless file to WMAL, and i only rip to WMAL. i didn't regret it.
...unless you choose a codec that takes longer to decode than it does to rip.
Just as a matter of interest, what does that (on a reasonably modern machine, of course)?
Depends on your definition of "reasonably modern"
My EEEPC only compresses in flac -8 at about 4x.
On the other hand, I'm not sure a Celeron M that was released in 2003 counts as "reasonably modern" (and it doesn't have a CD-ROM drive anyway)
EDIT:Disregard, I misread the post I replied to and this doesn't apply.
Moderation: Removed useless quote of previous post. There's a reason why MichaelW needed to do it, but it doesn't apply to you (hint: his quote wasn't of the previous post).
Sure, but I'm sure flac still decodes quite quickly on your machine; certainly a lot faster than it takes to rip a disc.
I haven't seen any figures on WMAL decoding speed. Does anyone have any information to share?
A quick test (5 passes in Foobar2000) of the same file encoded as WMAL and FLAC -5
WMAL: 36.67x
FLAC: 412.28x
Quite a huge difference!
...unless you choose a codec that takes longer to decode than it does to rip.
Just as a matter of interest, what does that (on a reasonably modern machine, of course)?
For example Monkey's Audio --insane
thanks people
feel a bit more informed now
I use WMP quite a bit to listern to music and make the occasional complication for DJ work
not that big on I-pods yet, bought one , uploaded some stuff on it ,then dropped it on the floor , shafted !
so I'll be leaving that for a bit I think
still into the vinyl really , but thought I'd best be a 21st century boy
and upload my Cd's , next things to try and upload the vinyl , perhaps i'll just download it'll
if I can find it.
so qualities the same , encoding/decodings faster with FLAC
cheers again